NWN2: Storm of Zehir is out!

[Starwars]

If you use the keyboard (WASD keys) you can move into the room.

[Pidesco]

Hmm it seem Storm of Zehir broke my MoTB game.. There are some areas which are missing, like a stairway in a particular level - I didn't notice it until now, but it seems I can't continue the game because of it..

Did you get the (massive) patch? I know SoZ broke the voices for MotB, but I didn't realise there were other issues.

 

I'm a few hours into the game, and loving it so far. No bugs yet, and the death system and random encounters do feel a bit like Baldur's Gate (that's a good thing).

 

Yeah the massive patch fixed alot of problems, but not this one.

 

 

I'm at the Thayan acadamy and the staircase to the instructors area is simply gone - there's just an open door that leads to a dark room which I can't enter - Twilight zone'ish.. I need to go down there to continue the main story, so now I'm stuck.

 

 

 

That's not a problem introduced by SoZ. You just have to manually walk into the door instead of using the mouse.

[Rosbjerg]

I wanted to try out your suggestion, but suddenly the room was there when I loaded, before I even got near it.

[taks]

That's not a problem introduced by SoZ. You just have to manually walk into the door instead of using the mouse.

as i recall, once you get yourself close enough the next room will appear, i.e., the "black door" will go away, and you'll then be able to target it properly using your mouse. that had me thinking when i first got there long before soz came out.

 

taks

[Gromnir]

have just arrived in sword coast. will offer up some impressions o' soz based on a goodly number of gameplay hours.

 

soz reminds Gromnir o' bg, but not in a good way. the original bg became tedious for Gromnir 'cause it were a seemingly endless procession o' relative brief and uninteresting encounters. durlag's tower were the best part o' bg, but that were included afterward in an expansion. does soz have a durlag's tower? if not soz is truly a throwback game that failed to advance 'pon games of a decade ago. much as with bg, the cohorts is little more than a stat sheet... but that is ok 'cause we weren't expecting anything more. however, am admittedly a bit surprised that the static encounters is so... small. a tiny cave filled with fire newts. a " mine" or crypt where-in a half-dozen undead attack. is this all there is?

 

...

 

perspective: after bg2 were released there were this vocal faction o' board posters that decried the absence o a sense o' exploration such as were present in bg. Gromnir were amused, 'cause we recall that one o' the most common complaints regarding bg were the tedium. everybody liked Durlag's Tower 'cause it fixed bg's biggest shortcoming: lack o' depth. bg2 gave players a large number o' sorta mini-durlag's, which is just one reason why bg2 is typically considered the superior bg game. still, it were amusing to see posts from folks complaining 'bout lack o' all those small and uninteresting encounters that were ubiquitous in bg, 'cause the bg2 developers had purposefully cut that crap out of bg2 in response to bg1 feedback.

 

is as if soz developers not pay attention to last decade o' d&d crpg development. go back and make a game similar to bg, but w/o recognizing or implementing many o' the improvements added post bg. have heard many times that soz were 'sposed to hearken back to iwd, but where is dorn's deep or the severed hand? (dragon's eye sucked, so we will not mention as a positive) given how robust the character generation feature has become with nwn2, creating a party o' four has great appeal for the d&d geek in Gromnir, but so far, the character generation has been the best part o' soz... 'cause there just ain't much else. so, where is the iwd in soz?

 

our party leader is a human rogue(2)/swashbuckler(3)/ranger(x) who started out with a 16 int and now has an 18 int... which means we got loads o' skill points. am always uncovering stuff on the overland map, and with high move silent skill we is able to pretty much pick and choose which random monster encounters we wish to submit to. 'course, we cannot imagine how frustrating the overland map would be w/o a considerable move silent or hide skill. the overland map literally swarms with monsters. instead o' rewarding the player who has a high hide or sneak skill, the developers seem to be trying to punish those who do not. you don't wanna have a sneaky party member? fine, then you gotta take the ranger cohort into your party and make her your leader... otherwise be prepared for monster spam. is bad game design that functional forces a particular kinda gameplay on a player.

 

haven't made much use o' crafting. within the first hour o' gameplay we had created two sets o' full plate armour. kewl... points well spent, right? then, at level 9 or so, we made a couple o' +1 weapons with thundering quality. that has been all. with the exception o' weapons with potential multiple elemental damage quality, we can't make particularly powerful stuff, and as we ain't needed more powerful stuff to beat encounters on the samarach map, we choose to save our quid. is refreshing that at level 11 we is still using the hideously ugly +1 armour we stole from the ranger cohort, but so far we just ain't gotten much use out of points spent on crafting skills, or crafting feats.

 

the bounty bag... sucks. am told that rare items is useful in crafting, so we would like to retain some portion o' collected... stuff. unfortunately, anything that goes into the bounty bag must necessarily be sold in bulk. got 12 will-o-wisp essences in bounty bag and wanna sell 6? tough cookies. is all or nothing for the selling o' stuff in bounty bag, and as we got no idea how many such essences we will need for crafting latter... *sigh* has resulted ina bizarre bit o' behavior in which we has various party members, not in possession o' the bounty bag, carry bits and pieces o' killed critters. is... inefficient and unnecessary.

 

and speaking o' bounties, how often does boars and stag beetles drop parts? Gromnir literal spent two hours and killed dozens o' boars, and we managed to collect a grand total of 5 boar tusks. am a slow learner, but we stopped trying to collect bounties following that 2 hours o' nonsense.

 

so far we haven't got too much story from soz, but that is okie dokie. the main motivation to continue playing soz seems to be a diabloesque 1007 & level kinda thing, but that ain't all bad. soz story is shallow, but not terrible bad. doesn't distract from gameplay, and can be explored at our own speed.

 

am gonna continue playing 'cause the 1007 & level shtick IS enough to keep us entertained. am genuine curious to see how well our party turns out when it reaches levels such as 12 and 15. am also curious to see how the trading feature is implemented. even so, am wondering what the soz developers were thinking as they built their game. the overland map musta' been crazy-difficult to implement, 'cause there simply ain't much else there so far. we weren't expecting mulsantir and thaymount and the skien kinda size and depth to show up as encounters on the overland map, but Sherman set the way-back machine to the late 1990s, and we is getting bg-style kobolds-in-a-cave kinda encounters. am hopeful that eventually we gets at least one or two more complex locations, otherwise...

 

what a waste.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Llyranor]

Admit it, your real disappointment lies in not being able to switch the SoZ menu music back to MotB's.

[Gromnir]

some o' the things people will focus their displeasure on is an unending source o' confusion to Gromnir. am recalling that after nwn were released, one poster complained 'bout the lack o' "pretty" shoes. with all the things wrong in nwn, this poster were most distressed 'bout the lack o' basic clothing options, particularly shoes.

 

...

 

such concerns is no less valid than Gromnir's, but give us an hour to come up with all the possible complaints concerning nwn and we would never have guessed that the dearth o' pretty shoes would be a genuine concern. likewise, the inability to switch music back to motb would not have been one o' our top 100 predicted complaints.

 

btw, am glad that we waited to play soz. it appears that many bugs has been addressed by the community with custom patches and work-arounds. perhaps somebody will even address the music "issue."

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Llyranor]

It needs to be fixed soon, otherwise Gabrielle will remain angry forever.

 

(aside from renaming the files)

[poolofpoo]

the "trading feature" is not good, no matter how you go about it you'll end up with billions of tradebars

 

you expect the story to pick up speed in the later part of the game but instead it just dies, for some reason the npc's doesn't care about "zehir" so why the hell should you

[Azure79]

I just completed the final battle. Man was that difficult. The first time around my party was just decimated. I had a fighter/weaponmaster, spirit shaman, rogue/shadow thief of amn/ranger and vanilla wizard. I was doing well up until that point letting my fighter take the heat while the shaman and wizard came in with the heavy bombardment with the rogue sneak attacking from the flanks. I was playing on core rules since I didn't think it was fair that the enemy didn't get critical hits.

 

After tryin several times and dying within seconds, I finally sneaked back outside and made my way to the Thayan Compound in Neverwinter. I realized by that point that I had about 4 million gold coins from all the trade bars, so I just used the cash to load up my wizard with every protective and deadly spell scroll available. Then I went back and missile stormed everything to death.

 

It was quite satisfying.

 

I enjoyed the game but it did feel a little tedious with the walking back and forth, with no means of instant travel to already discovered locations. There was the teleporter between cities, but it seemed only to be one way and you had to walk back. I liked the little random encounters, but I think the interesting ones were too few. Mostly the encounters seemed like small dungeons with monsters.

 

Still it was a fun game for me. I wonder what happens if you make a full yuan-ti party?

[Jaesun]

Comparing SoZ to Baldur's Gate is utterly ridiculous.

[Morgoth]

SoZ was a disappointment. But that doesn't mean I'm angry, like Llyr or DR.

[Nick_i_am]

Lly is angry! Look at his rage! Rawr!

 

This game looks like effort man.

[Walsingham]

I haven't played it single player. I would suggest that it is designed for multi-player, since that is quite cool.

[Gromnir]

Comparing SoZ to Baldur's Gate is utterly ridiculous.

 

 

perhaps you is correct. after all, is probable unfair to soz. bg strengths, such as they is, only is apparent when compared to the complete absence o' quality d&d games released in the mid to late 1990s. make bg today with improved graphics, but everything else same in bg, and it would get slammed by critics and ignored by fans. virtually no joinable npc interaction? big maps filled with an ugly amount o' almost random seeming encounters? shallow character development options. the few Big encounters in bg were actual pretty small. cloakwood mines maybe is biggest single insular and discreet bg location, with a surface and 3 sizable dungeon levels... and the dungeon levels were all pretty lame with little more than some linked rooms filled with adversaries intent on doing you harm. bg is bigger than soz, so it gots more of what sucks in soz, but the games is very similar. bg and soz has very much in common... from a gameplay pov.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Nightshape]

But BG was more accessable BECAUSE of all those things.

[Gromnir]

But BG was more accessable BECAUSE of all those things.

 

 

you know, a statement like that doesn't really mean anything.

 

0 development of joinable npcs beyond the character record sheet? well, that made the game more accessible.

 

individual encounters and quests is small, undeveloped, and largely dull? well, that too made bg more accessible.

 

"more accessible" sounds like a lame excuse that can be used to explain away loads o' shortcomings.

 

...

 

pretty much the only point we might accede to is that the cursory implementation o' d&d rulez in bg did indeed makes it more accessible to the general gamer. a person NOT familiar with d&d who picked up bg could still play game w/o feeling like they was missing 90% of the game. play a bg fighter? virtually your only options is how to spend weapon proficiency points... and there were so few weapon categories available that such choosing were pretty much impossible to break.

 

 

as we noted already, based on player feedback at the bg boards, it were obvious that folks (almost w/o exception) liked Durlag's Tower better than they liked any single location in bg. inclusion o' Durlag's tower made BG less accessible? sure seemed as if folks wanted More Durlag kinda encounters. well shucks, but that necessarily means that developers must gives you LESS handful-o'-kobolds-in-a-cave encounters, no?

 

sorry, but ns comments, w/o further explanation, sounds like little more than a lame all-purpose response to explain away developer shortfalls.

 

am suspecting that main reason bg were a kinda rudimentary/fat crayon example o' d&d crpgs is 'cause the biowarians really didn't know what they were doing. were bio's first crpg after all, and there had been no successful d&d releases for a few years... so ain't as if bio could steal ideas from other games and developers. diablo were the only example o' a popular crpg released in a goodly time, so is probably not surprising that bg seemingly took inspiration from blizzard developers.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Enoch]

I think there might be some undetected sarcasm going on here.

 

 

"it were obvious that folks (almost w/o exception) liked Durlag's Tower better than they liked any single location in bg."

 

Not to threadjack, but I didn't particularly enjoy Durlag's Tower. It was indubitably more artfully designed than the rest of BG. But I never actually had the patience to finish it for a few reasons. First, creeping along 6 feet at a time and waiting to see if I detect a trap is not particularly enjoyable gameplay. Second, IIRC, the story didn't give much motivation besides "there's treasure there" and "you just payed $30 for this expansion so you might as well go play it." Third, my party hit the XP cap before I got far in there (I played BG1 after TotSC was released, and reached the TotSC XP cap either before or early on during Durlags), which makes it seem more pointless. And, finally, if you haven't set your party up to abuse the BG1-optimal "chokepoint, summoned meatshields, ranged weapons/spells" mechanic, a couple of the fights in the dungeon are difficult enough to make you quit in frustration.

 

 

Otherwise, I agree with Grom. SoZ feels like BG in that there is too little entertaining content spread out over too great an area, with mostly boring filler combat in the gaps.

[Gromnir]

"I think there might be some undetected sarcasm going on here."

 

one hopes you is right... but sadly Gromnir is accustomed to encountering the BG Defense League whenever we suggest that perhaps bg were a flawed game. scroll up a few posts for an example.

 

the xp cap thing were a drag for many. weren't really a shortcoming o' the durlag tower encounter though. nevertheless, am in agreement that bio dropped the ball with the TotSC level cap.... 'course the same flaw existed in bg. how many of us were at level cap BEFORE entering baldur's gate city? if we is discussing why people liked/disliked durlag's compared to stuff in bg core game, it may be tough to cite the TotSC level cap with a straight face.

 

Gromnir hated the bg story and the patently ridiculous plan o' sarevok. poison iron IN a mine to create a synthetic shortage? a mine with a James Bond kinda self-destruct mechanism? etc. gotta ignore reason and economics to make sarevok anything other than a whack-job. nevertheless, we did see that many people enjoyed the BG story. personally we found the durlag story ever-so-slightly more compelling than the bg fare, but we concede that the general weight o' feedback were not mentioning story as the reason people preferred the durlag's tower encounter. that being said, please keep in mind that durlag's were simply an encounter within TotSC. were there a bg encounter that had a better individual story development? firewine bridge? the gnoll fortress? again. gotta compare apples.

 

difficulty is one o' those issues that must drive developers nuts. no matter how hard developers make a game, there will be folks that claim it were too easy. no matter how easy the developers make the game, some will complain that game were too hard. am not sure how to honest measure toughness factor based on board feedback, 'cause Gromnir cannot recall any crpg released by bio or obsidian/black isle or bethesda or numerous others that did not elicit considerable complaints of "too easy" AND "too hard."

 

regardless, am willing to recognize that approval for durlag's were not universal.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 29, 2008 by Gromnir

[Tigranes]

BG Defense League

 

Sacred Defenders, transform!

 

BG was very undeveloped in a number of ways - as you say Gromnir, Firewine & Gnoll Fortress were so shallow you'd stub your toe in the bottom. But I think it nevertheless constructed a certain verisimilitude to a great level of polish, and it was fun if you got into it. If you approached it from another angle and kept asking "how does this make sense" or whatnot, it was, well, very silly.

 

Funnily enough, though, I thought the BG dialogue was a lot less emo and melodramatic than anything in, say, KOTOR or JE. It was a lot more sensible.

[Volourn]

L0L Emo is a word that has become so diluted that its use has become so meaningless when used as an attack against anything the user dislikes or dissaproves of.

 

"Oh, that's so emo!" is more emo than emo is.

 

As for BG's dialogue beingmore 'sensible'; I think the word you are looking for is 'simple'.

[Gromnir]

L0L Emo is a word that has become so diluted that its use has become so meaningless when used as an attack against anything the user dislikes or dissaproves of.

 

"Oh, that's so emo!" is more emo than emo is.

 

As for BG's dialogue beingmore 'sensible'; I think the word you are looking for is 'simple'.

 

vol, for a change, is correct. bg dialogue were pretty... thin. the developers went almost to extreme o' camp by including all the stereotypical fantasy characters who responded with brief and expected dialogues that did little to build character or story.... but 'cause everything were so by-the-book traditional fantasy, players filled in the gaps.

 

for chrissakes, sarevok's Villain Laugh made us chuckle the first time we heard it 'cause it were campy extreme.

 

is nothing wrong with people like for bg. am always believing that much of the approval of bg is kinda based 'pon nostalgia rather than reality, but even so, there is clearly a segment o' folks that want just the bare-bones and traditional fantasy shtick that doesn't necessarily get in the way of their "exploration." am not sure if such stuff can be said to qualify as good or better dialogue/story, but clearly some folks prefer that the game developers stay out of their way.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[taks]

for chrissakes, sarevok's Villain Laugh made us chuckle the first time we heard it 'cause it were campy extreme.

hehe... like dr. evil.

 

taks

[poolofpoo]

Gromnir hated the bg story and the patently ridiculous plan o' sarevok. poison iron IN a mine to create a synthetic shortage? a mine with a James Bond kinda self-destruct mechanism? etc. gotta ignore reason and economics to make sarevok anything other than a whack-job.

 

 

yeah i know BG was ridiculous, poison iron, i mean come on! But imagine this one: you can not really die. Everytime you time you do, you wake up in the same place but you lose your memory, only, sometimes you dont lose your memory...and in the end you fight your own mortality to stay alive. OH MY F****NG GOD!!!

 

seriously, why bring up "reason" in BG or any other tsr product for that matter?

[Gromnir]

for chrissakes, sarevok's Villain Laugh made us chuckle the first time we heard it 'cause it were campy extreme.

hehe... like dr. evil.

 

taks

 

exactly. honestly am still, to this day, not sure if bg were meant to be humorous/camp and perhaps most of us just not get. fallout, for example, were a game that purposefully jumped back and forth 'tween deadly earnest and over-the-top camp... were part of its charm. bg, on the other hand...

 

bg had its intentional funny moments and funny characters, but we tends to think that the camp were accidental... but you never know.

 

HA! Good Fun!